Hospital Clowns Make the Rounds

The critical care unit had an outbreak of frowns. So the Whittier hospital sent in the clowns.

“Oh, so you need your B-12 shot?” bellowed the red-nosed Dr. Strawbelly as he bounded into patient Jim Walker’s room waving a foot-long “syringe” that looked more like a contractor’s caulking gun than a medical instrument.

“No!” replied Walker, mustering a grin. The 64-year-old Bell Gardens truck driver was laughing as Nurse Beacuz and Nurse SoSo squeezed in next to Strawbelly. Like the make-believe doctor, they also wore goofy costumes and dispensed jokes.

When the going gets glum, they go for the guffaws at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital.

Medical experts across the country who believe laughter is good therapy have for decades asked clowns to cheer up patients.

Humor fights off chronic stress hormones that weaken your body, said Dr. Lee Berk, an assistant medical professor at UC Irvine who has studied the subject for a quarter-century. “The more you laugh, the more you tune up your immune system.”

But operators of the 339-bed nonprofit health center have gone a step further: They’ve created their own hospital clown school.

Their first 21 clowns graduated last week. On this day, they fanned out through the hospital, from the emergency room to the pediatric ward.

The clowns’ arrival at the critical care unit caused nurses’ heads to pop out of doorways. “This can’t help but help,” said Dr. Mukesh Shah, a real doctor who was on duty. “If the nurses smile, the patients smile, too.”

The hospital’s clown school students took 16 hours of training over eight weeks before graduating to their multicolor wigs, greasepaint makeup and puffy-pants costumes. Veteran clowns Paul and Charlene Hammons and Pam Ehlers, all of Whittier, conducted the classes.

“In a hospital, you have to be sensitive and respect patients’ space and privacy,” said Paul Hammons, 52, a manufacturing manager who portrays Dr. Strawbelly. “You have to avoid the more physical clown stuff.”

There are other rules, too. They must ask permission before entering patients’ rooms because some people are scared of clowns. Clowns must wash their hands after leaving each room, and they must be careful not to touch medical gear such as IV tubes and electronic heart monitors.

That didn’t stop Ehlers, a 40-something second-grade teacher, from joking about the equipment.

“Want to have a seat while we’re waiting?” the costumed Ehlers quipped to fellow clown Alice Pierson, 80, also of Whittier. Pointing to a potty seat attached to a bedpan, she deadpanned: “That one’s not taken.”

The hospital clowns are unpaid volunteers, although several are also employees of the hospital. Gabriel Valles, 50, is a security guard there. He was surprised--but delighted--when co-workers failed to recognize him. His elaborate red, white and blue clown face makeup had taken more than an hour to apply.

Fellow clown Joe Estrada, a 61-year-old Los Angeles County probation officer, spent 90 minutes painting on his smiley face. “If my boss saw me, he’d have a fit,” Estrada joked. “But I like doing this. It’s therapeutic.”

Identically costumed clowns Joan Overbeck, 77, Marie Moberly, 72, and Betty Bradley, 77, strolled through the hospital’s triage area and into its emergency room to cheer up 13-month-old Andres Lopez.

The three women enrolled in the clown class after remembering they had look-alike clown suits left over from a Pico Rivera Women’s Club event.

“No, we’re not wearing padding. What you see is what you get,” Bradley said of the red satin get-ups. The other two roared at the joke.

“We’ve known each other 50 years,” said Overbeck.

The youngest clown in the hospital class was 11-year-old Anthony Hernandez of Rosemead.

“Clowning around is harder than I thought it would be,” he confessed as he headed toward patient Arnold Ponce de Leon’s room.

Anthony was joined by 71-year-old Roy Holguin, a retired Whittier tool and die maker who spent $300 on a clown suit of patriotic stars and stripes.

Ponce de Leon brightened when he received a barrage of jokes and a handcrafted balloon animal from the clowns.

“It lifted my spirits a lot,” said the 69-year-old who was recuperating from surgery.